I apologize for the delayed update! It has been busy, busy, busy around here. Take a look at what we have been up to! :) Math: We finished up our unit that included skills of: adding/subtracting 3-digit numbers, solving word problems using g/kg/L/mL, rounding to the nearest 10/100, and telling time and elapsed time. Your child's assessment will go home with them on Monday along with their report card. I ask that you look over it with them and correct and mistakes they made. It will then be signed and returned to me. We started our new math module where we are working on solving multiplication and division with a variable. For example 3 x p = 12, p = 4. Students are solving word problems that are both one and two-step problems. We will get into the associate property 3 x 4 x 5 is the same as 4 x 3 x 5 and the distributive property 3 x (9 + 5) = (3 x 9) + (3 x 5). Important Info Regarding Math: If your child has not reached or passed level P on Rocket Math, they are not on track for being proficient by the end of the school year. Please make sure you are checking in with your child nightly to see where they are and what they need to focus more on. A progress report will be coming home with their report cards. Reading: We are about finished with finding the main idea of a non-fiction text and supporting it with evidence. Students also worked on summarizing the main idea with their evidence. We will be moving back into non-fiction shortly. Writing: Students are working on their expository/informational pieces. They have developed chapters to organize their information and have made sure to include: mini-stories, facts and ideas, expert words, details and descriptions, and introductions and conclusions. Some students have even added a glossary along with a table of contents! Social Studies: We started our third PYP Unit: Sharing the Planet. Students are learning about the regions of Oregon, specifically the climates, natural resources, and landforms found within that region. Social Emotional Learning- The ZONES of RegulationChildren at Hiteon are learning about how their emotions and attention are connected, and then how to recognize emotions and attention in themselves and classmates. They learn that they move through their Zones throughout the day, and that they can improve their control over their Zones through practice. Teachers are modeling their own feelings and share their “zones” as well. It is very important to know that none of the Zones is considered “bad” or “naughty.” All of the Zones are expected at one time or another. As the year progresses, children will practice identifying what Zone is expected, and how to change Zones to better match their levels of alertness and emotions to their situation. If you use the Zones of Regulation vocabulary at home, please use neutral language. For example, “I notice you are in the Blue Zone. What is your plan for moving to the Green Zone?” Or “The Yellow Zone is great for the playground, but right now we are getting ready for dinner. Can you tell me what Zone would be a better match for getting ready for dinner?” “You are in the Red Zone. It is hard to solve problems when you are in the Red Zone. Do you need help getting calmer, so you can be in the Yellow or the Green Zone?” You can also model your feelings for your children by sharing your own feelings when in a certain zone. Sincerely, Codie Christenson Student Success Coach Personal Student Safety KitsWe live in an area that occasionally experiences emergency situations (earthquakes, ice storms, etc.). To prepare for an emergency, we have created the following plan:
~ No soda pop, please ~ 2 granola bars, cheese or regular crackers, or fruit snack packages. Please return your child’s labeled personal emergency food kit to their teacher within the next three weeks. Thank you so much with this important matter - it is greatly appreciated. Feel free to call if you have any questions.
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I think everyone has started counting down the days until Winter Break. There has been a lot of extra energy filling the classroom the past couple weeks! This week was not short of lots of learning though! We did some fun activities to help support our learning. Take a look. Math: Our current unit is a compilation of measurement and data skills. We started the unit with rounding 3-digit numbers to the 10’s place and 100’s place. Students used the following saying as a quick trick for rounding: Find the place, Look Next Door, 4 or less, go back and let the number rest 5 or more, go back and add one more. For example: Round 134 to the nearest 10. Start with finding the place, so in this case the 10’s place. Look at the number next door, in this case we would look at the 4. Then decide if the number is 4 or less or 5 or more. In this case it is 4 or less. So, go back and let the 3 in the tens place rest. Therefore 134 » 130. We moved from rounding to adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers using the standard algorithm. For example: 123 +348 This week we started with reviewing how to tell time and then moving to elapsed time. Please see the picture to understand how we are using mountains, hills, and rocks to figure out how much time has passed. We will continue with this concept next week as well to make sure students have a solid understanding. How can I support my child in math right now? -Continue to practice their multiplication facts at home. I can see so much growth! -Have them regularly tell time on a clock (not digital, ha!) -Give them random 3-digit adding and subtracting problems to continue to practice -Ask them how much will have elapsed if I started something at this time and ended at this time. Literacy: We are working on finding the main idea of non-fiction articles. Students are using text features such as the title, subheadings, captions, pictures, and others to help “rev” up their mind before reading the article. This skill is working to get students to identify what they think they are going to be reading before they actually start reading. To “rev” up our mind, we take a look at all the articles text features before we begin reading. After reading the article, students ask themselves two questions:
Using the answer to both of these questions, we can identify the main idea in a sentence. Once students identify the main idea, they need to use three details from the text to support their main idea. See the picture below for an idea! How can I support my child in reading right now? -Find the main idea of a non-fiction text with them and three supporting details to go with the main idea. -Continue to read with them. This is HUGE. Writing: We started our non-fiction informational writing unit. Students chose a topic they felt they were an expert on in order to write a non-fiction piece! We spent most of our week brainstorming expert ideas and then chose one! Science: We continued our PYP Unit: How the World Works. Students have learned about five different forces: gravity, friction, magnetism, push, and pull. Students had the opportunity to investigate the forces of magnetism and friction this week. They had a blast! Magnetism investigation: Students were given magnets in which they had to figure out if they could make a magnet float, a paper clip float and if the force of a magnet could go through paper and/or cardboard. Ask them about their results! Friction Investigation: Students were given several different materials in which they attached pennies to. They lined up all the materials and released them all at the same time to determine which objects had the least amount of friction and the most amount of friction. We discussed why some materials have more friction vs those that have less friction. Such a fun investigation! Students also identified forces in the real world. See the SeeSaw Post they completed! They circled the forces in the picture. Each force was a different color.
Random Happenings! -PJ Day is Friday, December 21st. Students can wear their pajamas, bring a blanket, and their favorite stuffed animal. Happy Weekend! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! It was nice to find some time to relax and catch up on my stack of books I have being trying to get through. Here is what we have been up to! Math: We spent time working on rounding to the nearest 10's and 100's place. Then we moved on to studying place value by solving 3-digit addition and subtraction problems. Students were put into small groups to create their own T-Shirt Company. They worked to figure out how many rolls of T-shirts (one roll had 10 T-shirts) and how many loose T-shirts they needed to run their company, It took a lot of thinking and understanding of place value to do so. Literacy: We have moved into our third unit of study: non-fiction. Students explored different non-fiction books to identify patterns found in non-fiction books. A lot of students noticed: glossary, table of contents, index, realistic photographs, headings, subheadings, etc. Students learned that when choosing a non-fiction book, they can "Rev Up Their Mind" by looking at the text features (headings, subheadings, photographs, etc.) This helps readers get an idea of what they will be reading about before they get started. Writing: Students finished their personal narrative published pieces. We will begin with informational writing pieces. Science: We are working on our PYP Unit: How The World Works. Our central idea is "patterns make predictions". Students identified patterns in push and pull forces and explored these forces by building a "Hopper Popper." I am sure you saw it come home! Students created their Hopper Popper and tested out how much force they needed to use to make their "Hopper Popper" go as high as possible. Odds & Ends: I wanted to share something that was so heart warming on Friday. On Thursday I overheard a few students telling each other to bring their stuffed animals to school on Friday. I was trying to figure out where they got this idea and what were they doing with them. On Friday our class was walking down the wall and it was a parade of students and stuffed animals. I was still wondering what they were doing haha! They walked into the classroom and they placed all their stuffed animals up on the shelf where items belong if you are bringing them for Exploration Friday. It finally dawned on me that they had all planned to bring their stuffed animals to use during Exploration Friday. When that time came around, students set up their "animal daycare" and played so kindly in a group. It melted my heart! I absolutely love this group of kiddos and their kind hearts. :) While some students played with their stuffed animals, other students worked on a winter crossword puzzle. :) Some took it home, too! I had other students ask for other fun winter activities. You can grab more winter activities off of education. com! There are a lot of fun arts and crafts for the holidays too! Click here to see them. Here is a "winter" specific page resource link as well. There are a variety of fun activities students can choose from. We have been busy in the classroom! Lots of learning is taking place! We have had the opportunity to spend each Wednesday with our Kindergarten buddies. The third graders are helping Kindergartners read their books. I love watching our class help others! They also had the chance to help their buddy with a Halloween art project. It was lots of fun! Math: We started our second unit off with rounding to the nearest 10 and 100. Students brainstormed how rounding is used in the real world and why it is a good skill to have! We came up with a list of ideas: grocery store, driving, money, and the list goes on! Reading: Our mystery unit is coming to an end. We will get to celebrate all the mystery books and skills we learned next week! I am excited for what is in store. I know the students will love it! They have done a great job reading mystery books to identify the mystery, the crime solver, the suspects, and paying attention to clues! Writing: We are about to publish our narratives!! The students have been working on these and are ready to put the final piece together! I can't wait to see the final outcome of them. They are terrific authors filled with creative ideas! Science: We finished our "Who We Are" unit and have started our "How the World Works" unit. This unit is an inquiry into force and motion. We kicked off the unit by exploring a handful of different stations, all which included some sort of force/motion (however the students did not know this). The students were inquirers. As they were exploring each station, they had to write down what they noticed. WOW! Some of their responses and ideas were OUT OF THIS WORLD. So brilliant! Social and Emotional Learning:
We have started our third Social and Emotional Learning Unit. Please look for the parent letter that should be coming home this week. This unit is all about communication, a very important skill that teachers are noticing lacking across the school. We feel fortunate to be able to practice the skill in our classroom. It would be great for it to be continued into your home as well. Students will be bringing home some tips that you can use at home. I hope everyone had a TERRIFIC weekend! The weather has been beautiful! Last week and the few days this week were spent finishing some units, almost finishing others, and starting some new ones as well! Math: In math, we are getting close to finishing our first introduction unit to multiplication and division. Last week we worked on the commutative property and this week on the distributive property. Commutative Property Example: 3 x 5 = 5 x 3 Distributive Property Example: 8 x 5 = (3 x 5) + (5 x 5) 8 x 5 = 15 + 25 8 x 5 = 40 A graded quiz (Topic E) will be coming home next week! Keep your eyes out for it in your child's homework folder. We also started Math Labs in our class. Parents flooded our classroom and put the students into different groups. Students spend about 20 minutes working on math problems at their current math level. Some are working on single-digit addition/subtraction, double-digit addition/subtraction, triple-digit addition/subtraction, and multiplication. We also started Rocket Math. Students are taking a multiplication facts test EVERY day. They get one minute to reach their goal. Students shouldn't have to take the same test for more than a few days if they are practicing at home regularly. Please, please, please ensure the are practicing nightly. It is essential they know these facts fluently. Reading: Last week we finished our Unit: Building Our Reading Lives. We learned about summaries, checking for comprehension, inferencing, and how to tackle challenging words. This week we started our Mystery Unit. Students entered class on Monday with caution tape on the door and caution tape surrounding our bench. The students noticed the pillows had gone missing. Students participated in a scavenger hunt throughout the school to get them back. Students also had the opportunity to study their fingerprints. Both activities were designed to get students excited about reading mysteries! Writing: Students chose one of their narrative, small moment stories from their collection they had started over the past few weeks. Students spent a couple days illustrating the beginning, middle, and end, where they included thoughts bubbles, characters talking, and details such as what they heard, smelled, saw, and felt. Students used those pictures to help them write their flash draft. Next, students are going to learn different strategies to improve their writing! Science: As mentioned in the email last week, we had a genetic scientist visit our classroom to introduce what DNA is to our students and how it makes up "Who We Are" (our PYP Unit). Students had the opportunity to create their own DNA model. They LOVED this activity. We are so fortunate! Students also did an apple tasting activity. Students tasted four different types of apples and recorded whether the apple was very sweet, sweet, sour, or very sour. Students learned how apples can be created to make sweeter apples through selection. Students are working on their final project for the our PYP unit: Who We Are. They are creating their own creature that needs to inherits 3-5 traits from its parents as well as acquiring 3-5 traits. A couple pictures from Exploration Friday! Students engaging in the game Apples to Apples where they are working on their communication skills and other students expressing their creativity through art.
Math: We spent most of the week working on reading story problems and solving them using the RDWW method. R= Read and reread the question D= Draw a picture to show your thinking W= Write a math equation (sentence) W= Write a word sentence answer the question I require the students to have the same answer for both their math equation and word sentence. For example: 3 x 4 = 12 (number sentence) and "There were 12 people altogether" (word sentence). Students are working on determining if a math problem requires either multiplication or division to solve the problem. They had a quiz their Topic D quiz this week that most brought home on Thursday. Reading: We worked on our five finger summaries. We practiced this skill with picture books. We wrote summaries to go along with them. See the picture to understand the term 5 finger summary. Students used these questions to help them configure a paragraph about a specific book or chapter they read.
Writing: We revisited the term "Show, Not Tell" which is something most students recognized from second grade. The students practiced doing an example with their writing partner. I gave them the sentence "I ate breakfast" which sounded more of a reported than of a storyteller. Students changed this example into something better. They did OUTSTANDING. We talked about storytellers use dialogue and they explain what they see around them or what they smell, taste, hear, or see. Science: Students visited a series of 5 different stations in which they had free choice as to how they visited each one. The stations revolved around the concept of inherited traits in animals and plants. They watched videos about dolphins, why leaves change color in the fall, they read book all about heredity, learned what was needed to grow a garden, and what crocs have to do in order for their eggs to hatch and their babies to survive. The students were SO engaged in this activity and did a wonderful job working with their partner to learn something new! Reminders: Popcorn Friday is this Friday! (New: Limit 2 bags of popcorn) Conference sign-ups went live! Check your email for the link. Walk and Bike to School is on Wednesday! I apologize for not updating you all last week. I was glued to a Kleenex box and cup of tea in hand all weekend! Math: We started learning about division. It is still a rather foreign concept to most students but we will get there! Some of them were amazed at what the division sign looked like! Students practiced drawing pictures to help them solve division problems. They also began to see how division and multiplication are fact families. We will continue solving multiplication and division problems. See the picture to help you understand how we are teaching both concepts. Literacy: We are continuing to work on strategies that help us understand what we are reading. Students learned about inferences this week. They also learned about the importance of checking for comprehension at the end of each chapter by asking themselves a few questions: 1.) Who is in this part? 2.) Where is the character? 3.) What is the character doing? I recommend you having your child answer these questions when they are finished with their at home reading. If they have any difficulty answering them, it is usually an indicator the book they are reading is too difficult. Writing: The past two weeks students generated a variety of stories. They started a new story each day so that they would have a selection of stories to choose from to improve in the future. Narratives can be a tough one for students but they are powering through them and filling their pages with stories! They were very eager to share theirs with the class this past week. So cute to watch, too!
Science: We are working on the central idea: Heredity and environment influence appearance and behavior. As a class we dissected the central idea to put it in our own words. We moved from looking at the inherited traits and acquired traits of people to plants. Students participated in a mystery science inquiry activity where they learned how another flower produces more flowers. A student in our class asked a follow up question about how do sunflowers produce more sunflowers if they have seeds in the middle of them. A very interesting question! So, we investigated. Students brought sunflowers, I gave them books, and we figured it out! We had flower petals all over the classroom, but we had a lot of fun! Students are doing great getting into the swing of things and figuring out our classroom procedures and schedules. We took this week to continue our Social and Emotional Learning during our Wednesday family meeting. Students learned how positive thoughts often lead to positive feelings and positive actions but negative thoughts tend to lead to negative thoughts and actions. A parent letter came home explaining our second unit that our class will be working through. Attached was a picture of person that helped out with our class activity. This is a great activity to use at home with your child! I gave the following example to students: Situation: Mom or dad asks you to clean your room. Negative Thought: I don't want to do that. It is boring. This leads to a negative feeling: Annoyed, frustrated. Which leads to a negative action: Child talks back to parent and shows disrespect. We then discussed if it is possible to change a negative thought to a positive one. Our class all agreed YES! We then replayed out the same situation changing our initial negative thought to a positive one. Positive Thought: It is my bedroom or mom and dad could use my help. This leads to a positive feeling: Helpful Which leads to a positive action: Child cleans room This is a great strategy use at home. This is something we will be using in the classroom to continue discussion around our thoughts influencing our feelings and actions positively or negatively. I encourage you to help turn your child's negative thoughts around to positive ones! The visual is a great way to help. Math: We started learning about multiplication this week. Students learned how multiplication is repeated addition. Students drew pictures to solve basic multiplication problems. Students are also learning that the first factor in multiplication stands for the number of groups, while the second number stands for the number in each group. For example: 3 x 4 stands for three groups times four objects in each of those groups.
Ask your child: Can you write a multiplication sentence for 2 + 2 + 2 + 2? They should answer with 4 x 2 because there are four groups of two. Reading: We started our first reading unit learning how to make reading the best it could be. Students learned it is important to find a good reading spot, choose books they love, read books like they are gold, and to talk about books! We practiced finding the perfect reading spot and staying there! This group of students sure love to read! I am excited for their enthusiasm they have towards reading!! Ask your child: How does a curmudgeon read? It would be awesome if they could demonstrate it for you using their current reading book! Writing: Students started writing in their journals! They have been eager to share their stories whether they are true or made up! Students practiced building their writing stamina and writing more than they did the day before. Science: Students learned about inherited traits and learned behaviors this week. They should be able to identify between the two of them. We did a few different activities to help us differentiate between the two. Our focus this week was on the traits of people. Our next focus will be on the traits of plants. Ask your child: Is "reading a book" an inherited trait or learned behavior? They should answer with learned behavior. Reminder: -Popcorn Friday is this week! We began making our way into our "normal" routine this week. Students started to get a feel of what our typical schedule will look like throughout the year. We continued to get to know one another and support each other's similarities and differences. We had a couple class family meetings this week. One to decide on our class name and motto and the other to teach a partner how to do something they are good at. Our class came up with the name Road Runners and our motto is "Don't Stop Running Until You Reach The Top." We are going to live out our class motto this year and my hope is that you can incorporate this motto in your home as well. :) Students also had the opportunity to bring in supplies to teach a partner how to do something. This is one of the best activities I have seen students participate in. We had everything from learning how to do magic tricks, to making slime, dance moves, drawing, and so many other great ones!! See slideshow of pictures below. Ask Your Child: What did your partner teach you how to do? Math: Students were given two real life situations: one involving the grocery store and one involving postage stamps. In the first scenario students were given a picture of items at the grocery store. Students had to explain how they got the total amount of different items pictured in the grocery store. It was interesting to see their thinking and how students all added (some multiplied) to get the total number. They showed so many different strategies. The picture below is what the pair of students received. You can see the multiple items students were required to get the total of. Another day students were given a paper containing postage stamps of different values. They worked with a partner again to explain their thinking about how they got the total amount. The purpose of these lessons were for students to recognize repeated addition and to see the connection between repeated addition and multiplication.
Reading: Our classroom library was opened! Students were eager to "book shop" and get their noses in a book. We discussed as a class what problems readers might encounter while reading and what they could do to solve them. Students found their reading spot and began reading! I was excited to see their enthusiasm around wanting to read. :) Students made me a wish list of books they wanted to see in our classroom and because I love supporting their wish for books, I found them! I can't wait for them to be in their hands! It was also great to meet many of you on Curriculum Night. Thank you for being an integral part of your child's education! I am looking forward to partnering with you this year! We made it through our first week of school. I hope your child had a great time because I sure did! I have to say that I have the SWEETEST group of students this year. They have received many compliments from other teachers about how wonderful they are. I am truly looking forward to this year. I feel spoiled with the group I have! This week we spent the majority of our time getting to know one another. We kicked off the year with our PYP Unit: Who We Are. Students had the opportunity to share three items that represented who they are. They explained why they are important to them and what the items show about themselves. Students reflected on what they learned about other students. Ask Your Child: What is something that you learned this week about another classmate of yours that you didn't know? See if they can be specific about the item the student brought. :) We also swapped classes this week! Each third grade teacher taught one component to their Who We Are Poster. They have been working hard on them so they are ready for Curriculum Night next week! They can't wait to show you! :) We worked on some graphs to also get to know our classmates. We made bar graphs! They selected their favorite season, favorite color, the number of pets they have, and their favorite subject. We reflected on those graphs to see what we could also learn about our classmates. Our classroom is piloting a new Social and Emotional Learning Program called Sanford Harmony. Part of the program in the beginning is all about working to build a classroom environment that is safe and welcoming. In order to build a classroom environment like that, students have to learn all about one another. Students were assigned a partner and then played a game called "Commonalities." The activity had roughly 20 boxes. Each box had a phrase. They filled in the box if they had that phrase in common. Some phrases included: the month you were born, favorite food, favorite music artist, whether they had siblings or not, etc. Students realized they often had more in common than they thought they would! If they did not have something in common they had to ask questions about that phrase in order to get to know their partner and their differences even more. I am really excited about this program and am looking forward to your support at home with it! I think it is going to be a great addition to our classroom. The pictures below are students playing the game. We finished today with another activity to help us identify our similarities and differences! :) Students drew four circles that looked like a target and in the middle circle they wrote their favorite food. The next circle around the circle stood for Love it, too, the next circle stood for, Like It, and the last circle stood for Don't Like it Too Well. Students went around the classroom and filled in the circle that represented their feelings toward what the student mentioned (see pictures below for a better idea). We had a discussion around the outcome of the activity. I absolutely LOVED one student's response to only one person loving someone else's favorite food. She said, "I noticed that only one person loved their favorite food. This makes that person extra unique." Rather than thinking, "Oh this person is weird," she said they were unique. This is what I am hoping students learn this year- we are all unique and because of that, we are all accepted. I look forward to Curriculum Night next week where I will have the opportunity to share more about our classroom!
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Sept. 14th- First Day of Online Learning
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